a gaming club in southern NH

So as some of you know, Chris and I are entering into the Basic Impetus Ancients tournament at Huzzah in Portland Maine this year and in doing so… well, we both need an army. Oh, and this tournament is three weeks away so I better get cracking on painting, basing and most importantly… Learning the game.

I have chosen (at the moment,) to go with the Army of Eumenes from Volume 3. One of the main reasons is the pikemen. Very few armies in the game (in this time period – I don’t know about later in life,) have this many pikemen. The thought and look of them poking up and out is one thing that got me interested in wargames in the first place. I am contemplating one other list, but I will look into that after a live playtest or two.

EUMENES (VDT=18/9)

Nr

Type

M

VBU

I

VD

Notes

1

CP(*)

10

6

4

3

Xystophoroi

1

CM

10

4

1

2

1

FP(*)

5

5

1

3

Argyraspids – pikes

3

FP

5

4

1

2

Phalangites – pikes

1

FL

8

4

1

2

2

S

8

2

0

1

short bow B or sling

Special rule. Argyraspids can form Large Units with other Phalangites.

Chris incidentally is making a Pict army and perhaps sometime down the road I’ll have to create a Roman army as an adversary. Read more…

This weekend I was able to put the finishing touches on the planes for the game (except for finishing off the bases and a varnish.) The two submarines are close to finished (or about as close as I am going to get.)

1/700 Zeros

1/700 Zero

1/700 Scale Wildcats

1/700 Scale F4F Wildcat

1/700 I-370 and I-68 Subs

Next up are all of the support pieces – Turning templates, fire arcs, measuring sticks, etc.

Well, I officially submitted my request to run a game at Havoc this year (Apr 1-3, 2011). It’s for a WW2 Air game I’ve mentioned before called Sturmovik Commander.

The Rookies Earn Their Wings
“Listen up Rookies. Do you see that captured Japanese ship over there? It’s our job to look over it and make sure nothing happens but first, get up on the flight deck and I want you all to show me what you’ve got!” – This ‘What If’ introduction to the game Sturmovik Commander (http://www.sturmovik-commander.com/) will take the pilots through the ropes as they learn to maneuver and shoot the F4F Wildcat somewhere over the Pacific, but what could possibly happen when their training ends?

So yeah – there we are. I’ve requested Saturday Night partly cause there’s not much going on that I see on the schedule, and partly cause there’s a couple of things I want to play in the other time slots.

The To Do list – Playtest, Paint, Playtest, build, Playtest, and hope that the event gets chosen… and Playtest among a few other things.

Not much to report on – well in actuality there is, but we were all feeling pretty lazy.

I was able to get in a couple of Flames of War games in. One against Chris and Two against Alex. Two of the games we tried to play 1000 point small forces (restricted to one combat platoon each,) on a small 4×3 table. It was a format I saw on another site and quite frankly it didn’t really work for us. The units were too packed in to really be able to do much. In the end though the Canadian’s were victorious against the hordes of Chris’s Russians but lost to the might of the German onslaught.

Our third game was a larger game that ended in a draw however we ran out of time and I truly think that the Canadian’s would not have held out.

Lastly, I was able to prime a few of the M10’s with the Black Gesso – an amazing product which I’ll be touching on soon.

So for my first game I head to Somerville to play one of the members of my Warhammer club, http://www.thelostlegion.net/ in the first of my 10 practice games for the Colonial GT. Paul is an excellent player, now building one of (if not THE) best all around army in Warhammer, Dark Elves. They have it all in their army list. Great shooting, magic, combat units plus fun things like huge monsters and bikini chicks with knives. His list, from what I remember was:

So an army with 117 shots a turn, an unkillable, nearly unbreakable, general and two of the best close combat units in the game with Black Guard and the War Hydra, Paul won easily. Rather than describe all the horror of the game it might be better to have you watch the Passion of the Christ, that gives a rough idea of the pain my warriors felt. I basically just put stuff down on the table and saw how things went, not good but it taught me some good lessons.

So things I’ve learned and changes I may make to my list:

1. Sorcerers need a bunker to hide in that will not be in combat and protect them from shooting. I’m thinking of dropping the Warrior units down to 15 and dropping the hounds, using those points to buy a Marauder unit and sticking them in there. We’ll see.

2. Having a small army that spreads out across the table against something with this much shooting and redirecting units is just foolish. I’m planning for next game is picking one half of the table and putting everything there to give my opponent more threats than they can deal with in a small space quickly. Then when/if that half is done, I can swing over and deal with the other half. With this in mind, I may have some adjustments to some magic banners. I’m thinking swapping out the War Banner for the Rapturous Standard to make a good anvil unit that can protect my exposed flank which should be towards the middle of the table.

3. As of now, I don’t have anything to deal with small redirecting units. With no shooting and no magic missiles in the army at all, I didn’t have anything to deal with the Shades, Dark Riders, or Harpies except with combat. The Slaanesh hero did great in taking out a unit of Shades and the Cold One knights by himself, but it’s not enough. The Warshrine excels against these units but is too slow to be a major threat and can be avoided easily. I may have to adjust the Nurgle/Shadow lore combo idea to deal with this.

But, onto the positives! The Slaanesh Hero did great, I made him to deal with small skirmish units, mainly Flamers found in deamon armies, and any unit with a flaming banner since he has a 2+ ward save against flaming attacks. Thankfully Paul’s Cold One Knights had it so he ended up killing them despite being charged from the rear while fighting the Shades. 🙂

The Warshrine did about as best as it has done in several games. None of it’s buffs were a waste, and it took out a unit of Shades quite easily. With it’s Toughness of 6 and 3+ ward save, I’d like to use it more as a tarpit. But, against anything with a static combat res of 3 or more, it’ll just break from combat. 5 Strength 4 attacks only go so far.

And finally, if I ever want to play Dark Elves, I know which army list to build. lol

So I thought I would decided to do a diary/log of sorts for my planning and results of the Warhammer fantasy grant tournament I’m going to in April called Colonial, http://www.thecolonialgt.com/entry.html . It’s a 2500 pt tournament and I’m going to be bringing my Warriors of Chaos army for their last major tournament. I’ve been playing them straight for about the last couple years and a change is needed, but that can be for another entry. So with 8th edition released over the summer thoughts were that the tournament scene might be shaken up with other top armies being able to take out the big four of 7th ed (Dark Elves, Vampire Counts, Deamons, and Lizardmen) and things haven’t really changed, though you could argue that Skaven are up there as well. So I’m trying to keep these armies in mind when designing my list to try and deal with these armies. Also, I want to get 10 practice games before the GT and my army list is going to morph and change in seeing how things go what weaknesses I see with my list.

Now I realize this list is faaaar from optimal. Financially, I can’t buy alot of things I would like to really make the list how I would, so I have to use what I already have purchased. The idea for the Nurgle/Shadow decks are mainly that I like the buffing/debuffing units and also Curse of the Leper. That spell combined with Shadow lore’s Strength and Toughness debuff can delete entire units. First, the Shadow sorcerer debuffs a unit down to either Strength or Toughness of 1, then the Nurgle Sorcerer casts Curse of the Leper on them. Curse reduces the Strength and Toughness down by one, and if either of those stats drop to 0, the model dies with no save at all. It’s very tough to pull off, and I’ve yet to do so but the one time it happens it’ll be great.

Sadly this army, and Warriors of Chaos in general, are very one dimensional (run up and smash) and I look forward to making a new army that is much more balanced, but that’s not for now.